City Hall Theatre
31-32 Park Row,
New York,
NY
10038
31-32 Park Row,
New York,
NY
10038
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 26 comments found
Ed’s right. The Tribune Theatre was in the white building partly seen about a block to the left of the City Hall Theatre in the photo at the top of this page.
Actually, Tinseltoes… I believe that this is a photo of the Tribune Theatre, which was located closer to the Brooklyn Bridge entrance, in a block of buildings that no longer exist.
Appears to be a blank marquee. I wouldn’t be surprised if this theater was dark for stretches during the Depression.
This started operating as the City Hall News Theatre at 31 Park Row on April 29th, 1943, according to a report in the next day’s issue of The New York Times. Programming consisted of the latest newsreels, short subjects, and cartoons, with complete changes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Admission was 25 cents at all times. Since that downtown business district virtually closed down at night, the City Hall Newsreel Theatre was open only from 9:00am to 6:00pm daily.
The July 8, 1915, issue of The New York Times said that the Reliable Investment Company, headed by Joseph Weinstock, had leased the property at 31 Park Row from the Jay Gould estate, and on expiration of the lease of the current tenants (on May 1, 1916) intended to replace the existing building with a moving picture theater.
I’m not sure if the original building, which dated from 1881 or 1882, was ultimately demolished, or was merely remodeled. However, plans for altering the City Hall Theatre building were filed in 1922, according to the February 4 issue of Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide. Architect Louis A. Sheinart was responsible for the plans, which included removing an existing wall, installing a new wall, beams, seats, stairs, and a marquee. A bowling alley was also mentioned as part of the project.
The marquee says “Bing Crosby – Martha Raye” from the film “Double or Nothing.” Released September 17, 1937.
This was still listed as open in the Film Daily Yearbook for 1946. It is listed as closed in the 1947 edition.
Even with a magnifier, I can’t read the message on the marquee. One can’t really guess a date by the cars, since new ones weren’t manufactured during WWII. During some of those years, the City Hall operated as a newsreel house. The photo confirms that the entrance and auditorium were in the building shown in this 2007 view with a yellow Nikon Digital sign across the top:
View link
I have come upon several photos of the City Hall Theater marquee which could not be used because of copyright issues, This is the best one i have seen and it is available thanks to Frank Pfuhler. Frank has kindly made vailable about 3000 photos from his collection of traction subjects on Webshots.
View link shows a TARS conduit streetcar on Park Row at City Hall from sometime between 1939 and 1947 as it waits to run back uptown. The City Hall Theater is in the background.
Perhaps someone can make out the movies ‘now showing" on the marquee.
After I posted above, I realized that 5th Avenue and Central Park West both have odd and even #’s on the same side of the street as they knew that no structures would ever be built on the Park sides.
There is another oddity in addresses downtown in the Financial District. The numbers for the addresses on Broad Street run North to South instead of the standard South to North. Don’t know why that is. :–)
Here are new links to photos described above on 7/5/06. Hard to believe that nearly two years have passed since I snapped them. The second photo would be impossible to take today due a construction project at the spot where I stood:
View link
View link
Louis….Since that comment in 2006, I’ve discovered that some streets in NYC don’t adhere to standard odd and even addressing (odd on one side and even on the other side of the street). Normally, addresses are assigned for both sides of a street even if the other side of the street has no current buildings located there. The addresses would be for future use. The addresses must have been assigned with the assumption that nothing would ever be built on the other side of the street in this area.
Lost Memory….There are some Streets in New York that contain both odd and even # adresses on the same side of the street. I believe this happens when there is no “other side” of the street. For example, across from Park Row is City Hall Park. Since there are no buildings there to have the even #’s, both odd and even were used for the East Side buildings.
I believe that the marquee of the City Hall Theatre can be seen in this undated view of Park Row, but I’m having trouble reconciling it with a color photo that I took in 2006. In the B&W photo, the theatre entrance appears to be at the right side of the small white building with billboards atop it. The area has drastically changed over the decades. The fountain in City Hall Park was moved a bit north when the park was re-designed in 1999:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/parkrow99.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/cityhall1.jpg
I think that I found the City Hall Theatre, which still exists but has been drastically changed into retail space over the years. It is currently a J&R store using the address of 31 Park Row. In the first photo, it is the building with the yellow Nikon Digital sign at the top. The smaller building to the left known as the J&R “Clearance Center” was originally a Thompson’s chain restaurant, and you can still see “Thompson’s” carved in stone below the geisha girl billboard. The right side of the second photo shows some of the back of the City Hall Theatre building, and was snapped from an empty lot on Nassau Street.
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/cityhall1.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/cityhall2.jpg
The 1944 FDYB listing was apparently an error. The 1934 FDYB gives an address of 32 Park Row for the City Hall Theatre.
Current Postal Addresses for Park Row (lower numbers) and building use:
1 Park Row Miscellaneous Office Building
15 Park Row Condo, Mixed Residental & Commercial Building
23 Park Row Miscellaneous Store Building
29 Park Row Miscellaneous Store Building
31 Park Row Miscellaneous Store Building
33 Park Row Miscellaneous Store Building
34 Park Row Miscellaneous Office Building
36 Park Row Elevator Apt, Cooperative
38 Park Row Other, College And University (Pace University)
41 Park Row Other, College And University (Pace University)
These are postal addresses and not lot addresses. A few of the above addresses span multiple lots. Example’s would be, 1 Park Row would span a lot address of 1-11 but its postal address is 1 Park Row. 15 Park Row spans the lot addresses of 13-21 Park Row with a postal address of 15 Park Row. Numbers should increase as you head uptown (north). I don’t have the time to identify each and every occupant of these buildings or to locate their owners. Some owners are hidden behind real estate names and would be difficult to locate. This area seems to be undergoing some changes. 15 Park Row is being renovated and the upper portion of the building is being converted into 210 rental apartments. 27 Park Row was recently sold. Not sure if its current use will be changed.
27 Park Row New York, NY 10038
Property type Miscellaneous Store Building
Sold by Estate Of Norman F. Levy
Bought by 23 Park Row Associates
Date sale recorded May 17, 2006
Sale Price $5,788,125
Getting back to my original comment, Google will not map the address given above. Even if you change it to 31-33 Park Row it will not map. Google see’s it as a hyphenated address. If this theater stood in the same location as the building at 31 Park Row, then that is the address that should be used above.
This website has some old photos of Park Row.
J&R occupies several buildings in one block of Park Row, but not consecutively. There are some other non-J&R buildings between them. Perhaps Park Row has been re-numbered since the “old days.” Where is the current 1 Park Row, south or north of 23? Do the numbers run up or down?
This address has me a little confused. How can you have an address span of 31-32? I’m not familiar with an odd and even address span in NYC. Could it be 31-33? J&R Music And Computer World gives a mailing address of 23 Park Row, New York, NY 10038. NYC gives the J&R property an address span of 23-27 Park Row so these must have been two different properties.
Could this be the same theatre? The 1944 FDYB gives an address for the City Hall Theatre as 3 Park Row, which could be an error with one digit missing. However, 3 Park Row would be closer to City Hall than #31:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/chnewsreel.jpg
I have located a photo of the theater showing part of the marquee and building facade. It was taken in May 1941. It was in operation at this time.
the photo shows a four storey building with a pool hall on the second floor front. South face of marquee reads:
Laugh Hit……..
Pirate of……..
Late News……..
Remainder of dotted lines is not shown in photo.
This is not the theater I was describing in a previous comment above which would be located to the north around a corner from this one.
Both address searches and DOB inquiries do show that the property is currently occupied by J&R. The last Public Assembly Permit listed for the location is dated 1944 so, in theory, the theatre was still operating at that point.
The theatre was apparently located in a four-story structure on property owned by the Jay Gould family from 1881-1946. An earlier, five-story structure had, at various times, housed the New York World, Daily News, and New York Times as tenants but was apparently demolished in 1916.
As mentioned in my summary, the theatre was operational no later than 1919 (there was a quickly-extinguished projection booth fire in June of that year). In 1926, Loews acquired a 32-year lease on the facility but, by 1939, the property was leased to Douglas Amusement Corporation (which apparently operated several upper Manhattan and Bronx theatres).
In 1946, the structure was sold by a corporation comprised of Gould’s heirs and was slated for renovations to make it suitable for retail space.
I’ve found some reference to 1950s and 60s operation of a Horn&Hardat Automat in the basement of a structure at this location. Does that ring any bells for anyone?
I have a recollection of a theater in the old Tribune Buiding on Park Row.
Park Row was the old center of the newspaper business in NYC in the 19th Century and into the early 20th. This area was also a transportation hub in period 1890-1943 when Brooklyn trolleys and ‘L" trains ran over the Brooklyn Bridge and met the Manhattan 'L" system and Third Avenue Railway trolleys at Park Row near City Hall.
The theater I recall was built into the old cavernous press rooms of the Tribune Building with an entrance on the northside facing toward the Brooklyn Bridge. It had a small round marquee that appeared to be of late ‘30’s or early 40’s vintage. It may have been called the City Hall but I can’t remember with any certainty. The last time I remember it open was circa 1961.